Talking VMWare Linux and Windows images?
Hi, I am trying to find a way of running a virtual machine with Linux and also another one with Windows XP, but I couldn't find a stable solution until now. I need to run a guest Linux and Linux from my Windows XP, so dual booting or booting from a stick is not an option. A few years ago I tried a Vinux VMWare image, and I could use it for a very short time, then I don't know what happened, but it stopped talking and I couldn't make it work again, so I abandoned it because it was not stable enough. Now I tried a Vinux VMWare image again, and it started to talk some things but it stopped talking before the login prompt. I tried to shut it down, tried to boot it again for many times, I even deleted the VMWare configuration file and used a new unarchived image, but it doesn't want to talk absolutely anything. It is not a problem to install and use a Linux virtual machine by SSH (using VirtualBox), because I was able to do it very easy with Vagrant, but I am wondering if there is a way to also use a VM of Windows XP and Linux with a GUI desktop. Do you know if there are somewhere VMWare images of Windows XP that can be used easily by a blind, or for the moment there are no stable solutions for that. I said VMWare, but it can be any other VM environment like VirtualBox if it is accessible. Thanks. --Octavian
Dear Mr Rasnita, Vmware player shipped with Vinux virtual image should be usable also with Windows Xp. But please, keep in mind, that eventhough Vmware player is one of The best virtualisation product on The world, The speech responsiveness will be slightly slover than while running regular operating system installation. As i have understood Yours question, You would like to have two virtual machines installed with Vmware player. One with Windows XP and second with Vinux. There are no legally available preinstalled Vmware player or other virtualisations prepared appliances with Windows XP preinstalled. You would had to install Windows XP. You must use two separate virtual machines, one, which will be preinstalled will beš with Vinux. Second, which You would had to create by using Vmware player virtual machine creation wizard will contain settings for installing Windows XP operating system. You have two possibilities. Use sighted help to install this operating system to The virtual machine, or You would had to use special freely available software for creating fully unattended Windows XP installation. There are two such products, which are accessible with screen readers from Windows. Windows Unattended CD Creator or Nlite. You have also The possibility to boot directly from .iso image with Windows Xp, because installing from CD or DVD can take slightly more time than installing to The normal system, not to virtual machine. Yours issues with sound are very interesting. Important is not change predefined Vinux virtual machine settings, do not apply system upgrades, because upgrades can break The Pulseaudio and Alsa sound server configuration, which have been specially modified by Vinux development team. Mr Enigball is producing according to my opinion stable Virtual machines with Vinux. I have experience, that Windows XP and Linux can be run to gether. But remember, that using those operating system from Virtual machine can fragment Yours NTFS partition with The operating system, from which virtual machine must be executed. But i understand You, that You want to use some Linux specific applications from Windows, aspecially because Vinux virtual machinee and vinux itself is having The setting to share The folder between Windows and Vinux. And keep on míind, that installing Windows XP to virtual machine have The same effect like installing Yours copy to other computer, so be careful because of licensing conditions of Windows Xp operating system, which You would had to install to virtual machine. You will have two virtual harddisk files, one for Vinux, second will be created by The wizard of Vmware Player product. If You would need AN help, please let me know.
Hi and thank you for your detailed explanation. Well, the history of my problem with the missing sound was something like: I installed the latest VMWare Player distribution I downloaded from VMWare web site. I downloaded the Vinux VMWare image and I opened it in VMWare Player. I changed just the networking to use bridge type. I ran Vinux virtual machine. In this process it also told me that there is a new VMWare Workstation available but I skipped it. It also told me that there is VMWare tools available and it asked me to install them. I chosen to install the VMWare tools and the installer worked for some more time, but it stopped with an error at ~ 87% of installation, so I started it again, and maybe the installation of VMWare tools finished or not, but Vinux started to speak and it told some information about the networking and other things might appear at startup and it also played that drums sound. But after that useless information, there was no login prompt and there was no speech anymore. I typed vinux <enter> and vinux again, but still no sound. So I have chosen to turn off the virtual machine from VMWare Player menu, then I tried to start it up for more times but with no luck, and I have even uninstalled and reinstalled VMWare Player for 2 times. I have also chosen to not install the VMWare Tools and see if the virtual machine will start talking, but it didn't. But with or without VMWare tools installed, in the last trials I started to have a bigger problem, because after pressing Control+G, I couldn't go back to host using Control+Alt+Shift nor Control+Alt (because I tried with and without changing the hotkey defined with that .bat file). For a few times I could close VMWare Player by pressing Control+Alt+Delete and the Task Manager appeared even though after that the computer was still frozen, but I pressed Alt+E, waited a long time, and then VMWare Player was killed. But for a few times I needed to press the restart button... When trying to install VMWare Tools I found that after a very long time, in the menus instead of the menu item that can be used for Updating the VMWare tools appeared an item for canceling the installation of VMWare tools, so for who knows what reasons, the installation of VMWare tools couldn't complete. When reading the VMWare Player window with the Jaws cursor I even seen a message telling that I need to mount the CD drive and to run a certain .pl file for installing VMWare Player. I guess that thing might have been done in the Vinux image but I couldn't have access in order to be able to do that.... Then I've seen your message and I uninstalled VMWare Player again, and I installed the version which comes with Vinux. I have also deleted all the VMWare directories from Documents and Settings and Program files and even some things from the registry before installing the version of VMWare Player that comes with Vinux. This time I haven't changed any settings for the virtual machine, but I just tried to start it. And I let it boot for ~ 10 minutes but there was no sound from it. I tried to wait some more, to type vinux <enter>, vinux <enter> but still no sound. I have even ran the file Fix Mixer Issues.bat and then tried to open and run the VM machine again, but still no sound. This time I didn't install VMWare Player Tools, because I don't know if they need to be installed or not. But I tried to let the control to Vinux VM using Control+G and I started to have that problem again because I couldn't let the control to the host OS with Control+Alt+Shift. And I needed to kill VMWare Player again using the task manager. So it still doesn't work, so I finally tried to install VMWare tools again. They downloaded fine and fast and started to install, and then for many seconds the progress still was at 1% and then that window with the installation progress disappeared. But still no sound. And in the menus appear "Cancel VMWare Tools installation" so they are probably still installing. But, if I read the VMware player with Jaws cursor again, it appears the following message: "Mount the CD drive in the guest, launch a terminal, and use tar to uncompress the installer, then execute vmware-install.pl to install VMware tools." So VMware player waits for me to do that, but I can't do that because I have no speech in the VM. Vinux doesn't look to be very stable... I need to use a virtual machine for different testing purposes, so I need to be able to fast delete an old VM and run a new clean one, but it seems that it is not so easy to make it work... Thanks. --Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mgr. Janusz Chmiel" <chmiel@deep.cz> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Talking VMWare Linux and Windows images? Dear Mr Rasnita, Vmware player shipped with Vinux virtual image should be usable also with Windows Xp. But please, keep in mind, that eventhough Vmware player is one of The best virtualisation product on The world, The speech responsiveness will be slightly slover than while running regular operating system installation. As i have understood Yours question, You would like to have two virtual machines installed with Vmware player. One with Windows XP and second with Vinux. There are no legally available preinstalled Vmware player or other virtualisations prepared appliances with Windows XP preinstalled. You would had to install Windows XP. You must use two separate virtual machines, one, which will be preinstalled will beš with Vinux. Second, which You would had to create by using Vmware player virtual machine creation wizard will contain settings for installing Windows XP operating system. You have two possibilities. Use sighted help to install this operating system to The virtual machine, or You would had to use special freely available software for creating fully unattended Windows XP installation. There are two such products, which are accessible with screen readers from Windows. Windows Unattended CD Creator or Nlite. You have also The possibility to boot directly from .iso image with Windows Xp, because installing from CD or DVD can take slightly more time than installing to The normal system, not to virtual machine. Yours issues with sound are very interesting. Important is not change predefined Vinux virtual machine settings, do not apply system upgrades, because upgrades can break The Pulseaudio and Alsa sound server configuration, which have been specially modified by Vinux development team. Mr Enigball is producing according to my opinion stable Virtual machines with Vinux. I have experience, that Windows XP and Linux can be run to gether. But remember, that using those operating system from Virtual machine can fragment Yours NTFS partition with The operating system, from which virtual machine must be executed. But i understand You, that You want to use some Linux specific applications from Windows, aspecially because Vinux virtual machinee and vinux itself is having The setting to share The folder between Windows and Vinux. And keep on míind, that installing Windows XP to virtual machine have The same effect like installing Yours copy to other computer, so be careful because of licensing conditions of Windows Xp operating system, which You would had to install to virtual machine. You will have two virtual harddisk files, one for Vinux, second will be created by The wizard of Vmware Player product. If You would need AN help, please let me know. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins
participants (2)
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Mgr. Janusz Chmiel -
Octavian Rasnita